Current network processing architectures, such as used with network routers and network switches, include multiple line cards that receive packets from different input ports. On the ingress side of a switch fabric, a traffic manager receives the packets and queues the packets for sending to the switch fabric based on some quality of service criteria. The packets are queued by the traffic manager for outputting to a backplane interface that then forwards the packets to the switch fabric. The backplane interface provides an interface between the traffic manager and the switch fabric that queues the ingress flows according to their identified destination ports.
The switch fabric establishes paths for forwarding the packets to output ports according to destination information attached to the packet headers. On the egress side of the switch fabric, the traffic manager processes the packets on a per flow basis from the different line cards sending packets over the switch fabric. There are multiple ingress flows from different line cards sending packets to the switch fabric at the same time.
Both the traffic manager and a backplane interface have to maintain and manage separate sets of buffers and separate sets of transceivers for communicating with the other processing elements in the network processing device. This requires more hardware while requiring additional time for sending and receiving data and data management commands.
The present invention addresses this and other problems associated with the prior art.